Trust is one of the most important concepts in sales and you cannot get anywhere without it. With other relationships in our lives, trust is gained over months or years, but in sales, how do you form that bond in just an hour or so with a complete stranger?
Coach Andrew DiDonato said that trust = ability + intent. It’s true that you need at least some ability to get to know your customer and you need the right intent to do so. You might ask yourself, “what other intent could I have besides selling to this customer?” Well, in order to develop trust and successfully sell to your client, you need to be interested in them and focused on getting to know them better. Simply wanting to form a relationship with someone else can easily show trust and it shows that you want to keep a relationship going in the future. Getting to know your customer can include doing some pre-call analysis of their company and asking the right questions during the sales call. These questions can include starting the conversation with “tell me where you’re from,” and during the conversation saying things like, “tell me more,” “what do you mean,” and other things that show you care about what the customer is saying. It’s also important to not feign interest or try and use sales “techniques.” As humans we have the ability to tell when someone doesn’t care or is just trying to get something out of us. As soon as they walk in the door, buyers are immediately asking themselves, “do I like this person?” and “can I trust them?” Find points of connection in the conversation and building trust will be a lot easier.
Another method you can use to develop trust with a customer is to attune yourself to them and what they are saying. Use the 70/30 rule of listening and talking and make sure your customer is being heard. You can attune yourself to your customer by reducing your own power so that the client feels like you are not taking over the conversation. Remember that every sales call is a two-way street! Even subtly mimicking body language can convey that you are like them and trustworthy. Finally, no mind reading! You never know what someone is thinking until they say it out loud, so only go off of what your client is saying. Do not misread between the lines and be careful of assumptive statements. Always ask what your customer means, and this will show that you really care about them.
With these tools, you can build a solid relationship with your customer so both of you can walk away with a smile on your face.
testacr22
Using the rules to build trust and get to know your customer are a surefire way to build a lasting and trusting relationship. Building a relationship with the customer also can help to ensure that there is repeated business between the parties. Building a relationship will definitely let both people walk away with a smile on their face because the seller made a sale and the buyer had help solving pain.
Hi, Katie! You made some great points on how to gain trust with clients. In my experience, I find that you should try to engage customers like they are your friend. Clients want to interact with people who are human and show interest in them. As you mentioned, people can detect ingenuity so it is best to be authentic. Good job with your post!
Gaining trust with a client is vital for a successful relationship and hopefully a successful sale. It is a very good point that you have made that people generally form trust over long periods of time, but in the sales world we are forced to gain someone’s trust in sometimes a matter of minutes. You offered some good tools in this post to help build the success and speed at which we gain the trust of clients. Great job!